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brother; the Nation had lost a brave! They are not as we are. After they kill their first deer, they have
no more to do with their parents -- they then belong to their nation; therefore, they all equally feel for them; there is
an hour of deep sadness in the tribe. They then hunt a spreading limb on some tall tree; they haul him up there and
confine the corpse to this limb and leave him, believing they have left him as near the happy hunting ground as possible.
But to return when the child was sent home to its parents; their grateful feelings knew no bounds. The old man
had two sons -- one 18 and one 20 years of age; he told them to go to the cabin of the man of the wilderness and protect him
at the cost of their own lives -- to live with him, or die with him, for he was worthy. They come -- two fine young
men, brave enough. We kew we would have trouble. We had built a little log fort and prepared for seige; we had
a good old-fashioned flint-lock rifle apiece; some extra flints; some powder and lead. But here is the great mystery:
why did we stay? I can only answer by saying we had become hardened to danger and trials, and I think it was not intended
we should run -- for the man of the wilderness makes so many hair-breadth escapes, lays down so often of a night, expecting
every moment to hear the savage war-whoop, the scalping-knife or bloody hatchet, until he becomes used to it. It seems to
be a natural consequence for him to be killed by an Indian -- it would be nothing new. Therefore,day after day, he remains.
Such was the case of the old Ringtail Panther of the wilderness of Missouri; and while at camp, things were going
on in this way. But now he knew he would be attacked by a large force soon. Our little fortwas built between a
steep cliff of rocks where there was butone way to get up to it, and that was up a small hollow that ran up to the fort.
He had ten 5 lb. canisters of powder planted along this hollow, some ten steps apart, running a little trail of powder
through hollow canes from cannister to canister, and from the last canister to where he expected to stand when he marched
out to meet them, intending for them to come to the middle of the first-planted powder, he wouldcause them to stop by a motion
that he wanted to talk. He knew they were superstitious and easily deceived, for he had already heard that they believed
him to be a great Medicine Man, or Big Thunder, from the Great Spirit, sent to punish the Osage. He knew it would be
an easy matter to
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